The Bluebird Cafe

A roughly 90-seat listening room in a Green Hills strip mall on Hillsboro Pike, about 5 miles from Lower Broadway. Two productions filmed here, 20 years apart, and both rebuilt the room on a soundstage.

Peter Bogdanovich's The Thing Called Love shot the exterior and parking lot in November 1992. Amy Kurland would have allowed the interior, but it was too small, so Paramount built a replica on Stage 5.

Producers of ABC's Nashville approached the club in 2011 and shot the pilot episode inside the actual room. The series premiered on October 10, 2012, the Bluebird's primetime debut.

Later episodes used a replica, interior and exterior, that Lion's Gate built on a Nashville soundstage. The Nashville Scene photographed it on September 19, 2012, headshots scanned off the club's walls and rehung in order.

The 1993 exterior and parking lot are free to see from the car. The 90-seat room sells out fast, and the show's fame overwhelmed it: GM Erika Wollam-Nichols said people “didn't know we did music.”